by Manoj Kumar & Amita Bhuwania
s they say, food does not just nourish our bodies, it feeds our soul too. For the celebrity Nita Mehta, there is truly no love sincerer than the love for food. In fact, it would not be unfitting to state that her
life has always revolved around food. She has created gastronomical delights which have enchanted an entire generation.
Nita Mehta fondly recalls her fascination for ice creams when she started experimenting with food some four decades back. Reminiscing the initiation of her journey into the world of food, Nita Mehta recollects that back in the mid-1980s, India’s home grown fast food chain Nirula’s was the only place where ice cream lovers could savor a variety of ice cream flavors. She sensed a huge opportunity to introduce the concept of ice cream fusions in the Indian market to satiate the cravings of ice cream fans for innovative ice creams that were different from the run of the mill stuff being sold back then. This prompted her to start her own cooking classes at her place at Asaf Ali Road in 1985 where she introduced a range of ice cream fusions and flavors.
She created a homely ambience in her classes which was conducive to carrying out her sessions in an interactive and fun manner so that her students could creatively relate to her passion for cooking. Over time, Nita Mehta added more variety of foods and cuisines to her classes, notable among those being Mughlai, Thai and Chinese. She followed a process of competitive benchmarking by first trying out a vast range of foods that were available elsewhere to explore the void that she could distinctively fill through a unique streak in her own recipes.
Buoyed by the encouraging response to her maiden initiative of holding cooking classes, Nita Mehta decided to expand the reach of her recipes by launching her own Recipe Books. This was however easier said than done. To her dismay, she realized that there were hardly any publishers who were willing to venture into the domain of cookbooks. They strongly believed that Indian cookbooks would be no match to the foreign ones that were considered classy and more acceptable. Nita Mehta however thought otherwise – not only were the foreign dishes not quite suitable for the Indian palate, many of the ingredients that went into preparing those dishes were also unavailable in our local markets. She therefore took the challenge of publishing her own Recipe Books even though she did not have any prior experience in this field. What worked to her advantage was the fact that her husband was running a DTP Centre where a Pre-Press facility existed.
The next hurdle that needed to be crossed was to get the right images of the foods that could go into the cookbooks. Nita Mehta recalls how her own efforts to take proper pictures of the various dishes did not yield desirable results until they sought professional assistance.
Arranging funds for printing the books was another challenge as no Printer would take up the assignment without full advance payment which was a colossal sum in those days. Even finding a Distributor for the book turned out to be a formidable task. Having overcome all these obstacles, Nita Mehta`s maiden cookbook titled `Vegetarian Wonders` finally saw the light of day as it hit the market in 1993. The book was a compendium of recipes for multiple cuisines for an entire range of dishes from Soups to Desserts.
The book did not sell well. Not one to give up easily, Nita Mehta made a fresh attempt, this time by launching small sized books each containing recipes only for specific dishes. This revised strategy made the books more affordable and handy to all customer categories which expanded their reach. On one end of the spectrum, she had very reasonably priced books for conventional meals while at the other end she had premium category Coffee Table books. She even launched books in Hindi. Her books therefore carried an appeal for masses and classes alike. Nita Mehta holds a special place in her heart for the book `Paneer All the Way` that created the unique brand image for her. Her books started selling well and for Nita Mehta there was no looking back after that.
Today, she has her own publishing house called Nita Mehta Publication. As the years progressed, Nita Mehta launched multiple Cooking Academies which were run by chefs trained by her. In addition, Nita Mehta also ran a restaurant in Ludhiana. These ventures however ended abruptly during Covid. Even though Nita Mehta was quick to adapt to technology by running her classes on-line, she firmly believes that cookbooks need to be constantly referred to and should be therefore available in physical form on the kitchen counters.
She also has a strong presence on digital media platforms and has diversified into catering business that she runs with her Daughter in law. Apart from that, she has also launched her brand named `Kitchen Queen` under which she sells spices, honey, oats and select condiments. Her Cloud Kitchen and Spice factory operate from the same premises in Okhla. While she looks at the creative aspects, her son takes care of the business side of their operations. Her son also writes books for children under her publication which are selling well.
A resident of GK-2 for the last 25 years, Nita Mehta gives full credit to her family for supporting her in her endeavors. She strongly believes that food binds families as nothing fosters love and affection within a family as much as a well prepared meal. This has a chain effect as food makes a person happy which in turn makes him easy to get along with. Team Samvada salutes Nita Mehta`s vision towards food and wishes her all the best for all times.
